 Would you join me this morning in John chapter 8? Man, it's a good, it's a blessing to be here with you. It's a blessing to be at this church. Your pastor is a pastor of pastors. And he's highly appreciated. He is greatly appreciated for holding his course for all these decades. You've been fortunate. You've not been, you've never been put through a scandal as a church. You've never had to go through the change of, you know, pastoral leadership for the consistency of your pastor. You've been, as a church, you're blessed in this. I'm telling you, you, I'm sure you're grateful and you appreciate it. So John chapter 8 this morning. And I gotta tell you, I agonize over what, as, you know, a guest pastor, you get to pick your message. It's not the same as being at home where you pick up where your bookmark is. And, you know, that would be my thing this morning if I was home. I'm gonna pick up right when my bookmark is, but I'm here. So I get to seek the Lord and say, what would you like for me to share with you people here? And, you know, he told me two different messages. Two. So I'll deliver one now. I'll deliver the other one next service. But this one, shorter continuous, you men who are with us yesterday, there's a little bit of a continuation, a larger point that I was making. Ladies, I was making a point yesterday, forgive me if I'm loud. I was making the point yesterday that all of us suffer in a sin-cursed world under the effects of sin, the very design of God in creating us, male and female, is a recipe for pain and sorrow. We all hurt. All of us experience sorrow as part of being human in a world like the one that we live in. We all get hurt. However, I made the case yesterday, and I don't think I'd have to convince you of this, but I made the case in Genesis chapter two, in Genesis chapter three, that when God comes into the scene in Eden, where our first father and mother had joined a rebellion in God's universe, they committed this offense, making themselves criminals in God's universe. They affected all of us when they did that, and when God comes to that scene in Eden, he does two things, primarily. Number one, he lays out to them the consequence, and he tells them both, sorrow will be a part now of your experience on earth. He told Adam, because you've done this, because you've harkened under the voice of your wife, cursed is the ground for your sake, and in sorrow you shall eat bread. Your labor to get food out of the ground is going to yield thorns and fuzzles, and in sorrow, he said, you will eat your bread until you return to the dust that you came from. The dust you are, and unto dust you shall return. But he used the word sorrow in describing to Adam what life is going to be like now, and it wasn't God saying, I'm going to give you sorrow, it's not God saying, I'm going to make you a sorrowful, it was God saying, this is the consequence, this is the result. Listen, there's two different notions about freedom. And in Eden, God told Adam, you are free, and everything is yours, except for that one tree. So this is God saying, you're free to choose, but you have God to weigh out these choices, because there's so much at stake. You understand what God said, of that one tree in the midst of the garden, thou shalt not eat thereof on the day that thou doest, thou shalt surely die. That's God saying, you're free, but you've got to be careful, you've got to weigh out your choices. The serpent comes along and says, there are no consequences, you can do whatever you want, you're free, and there is no death to fear you shall not surely die. No, you'll ascend, you should be as God's knowing good and evil. God does know that in the day that you eat thereof, you should be as God's knowing good and evil. Two different notions about freedom, the notion that the serpent introduced about freedom, that kind of freedom does not exist anywhere in this universe. It doesn't exist anywhere. The idea that you can do whatever you want and there's no consequence is a lie. It's a cause and effect universe. There are consequences to every choice we make. All right, so two different notions about freedom. Adam's descendants overall have continued to believe the lie of the serpent, all through these millennia. The majority of our species continues to believe they can do whatever they want, and there is no death to fear, therefore there really is no need for a savior. So again, God comes into the scene, and I would remind you that it was God who created one man in his image, in his likeness. He took that one man, made in his likeness, and he tore him into two people. I made much yesterday. I'll do it now. I make much of what God did not do to create woman. God did not repeat Genesis 2.7 where it says, Then the Lord God formed a man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. God Elohim, I don't know, he did not form the woman out of the dust of the ground, and breathing into her nostrils the breath of life and she become a living soul. He did not repeat Genesis 2.7. Why? You know why? Because she was already there. She already existed as the other half of who Adam was. You understand what I'm saying to you? That God did not come up with her separate. He didn't create her, forming her from the dust of the ground, and then breathing life into her, and she becomes a living soul. He didn't do that, because she was already there. But where? Where was she? She was in Adam. She was taken out of the man. The man understood that. I'm telling you he woke up and said, she should be a cold woman, for she was taken out of man, and that man was not just conscious of a missing bone. He was not just conscious that maybe he lost a little bit of his matter. I believe he woke up and knew he had been completely altered. He went to sleep one man, he woke up a different man. With a whole lot more in common with us, men who have descended from him. I tell you, I say to you again, this day there are only two sexes, only two genders, and they are God's doing. Now listen to me on this. The real crime of the day in which we live, the real sin is what is being done to children. My heart breaks for the woman who hates her own womanhood. My heart breaks for the woman who's been thrown into such confusion that she thinks she can become what I am. With just a little thicker watch band, and a little more weight, and a butch haircut, and maybe some hormones, and a knife. My heart breaks for her. She doesn't know what I am. She cannot appreciate what it is to actually be a man. It's not about the thickness. You watch band, or how much a bench, and even more. My heart breaks for the man who has been so treated in this world, so betrayed by his own father, and so introduced to confusion, that he thinks he can become one of you ladies. That he doesn't understand what you are. He doesn't understand the depth of what you are. I'm saying to you that when Adam came out of the deep sleep that God put him in, and separated from him, that he knew, he knew he was like, what did you do to me? And he's like, ah, I want to build things and conquer, and I want to, and I feel, what is it, I feel, that's it. I don't feel anything much. Where do all my feelings go? And the reality is, and this is a reality ladies and gentlemen, there are at least three things that make a woman hurt. There are at least three things that put her at a disadvantage. There are at least three. Number one, she feels things much more deeply. Number two, she is physically weaker. Well, that's a reality. Number three, she was wired with a need for love. It's a deep need. So God lays out to the woman to Eve, because you've done this thing, that would greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. And in sorrow you will bring forth life and your desire to be your husband, he shall rule over you. That's a reality. The average man physically, the average man's body is about 40% muscle mass. It's the average. The average woman's body is about 25% muscle mass. Oh, this wickedness that is being perpetrated against women's sports is a great offense. It offends me deeply as a man, as a worshiper of God, as an appreciator of male and female distinctions. To see a male who can't even qualify with his own sex and gender, enter the competition, posing as a girl, and then stomping those girls, which are offensive to me. The whole world ought to be outraged. Now, I want to listen to me. Hear me on this, please. I don't mean to just rant. I actually try not to. In the same way there is this differential physically. The average man is about 40% muscle mass. The average woman is about 25% muscle mass. And by the way, men have more blood and more blood vessels to carry all of that blood. This is the design of God. It contributes to such things as the temperature sensitivity that all you ladies have. You're aware. It's like hot, or it's, I am freezing. You are aware by God's design. You, with your gentle hand can lay your hand on the forehead of a child and detect a two to three degree fluctuation. No man can do that. A man will go, is this kid hot? This kid feels hot. I'm thinking he needs confirmation for your touch. You can detect that. Now you imagine a man being able to lay his hand on the side of an engine block and go, this is running on like three degrees hot. That kind of sensitivity does not exist with a man. Trying to make a point here. I'm really not trying to, there's a lot of, there's some funny stuff in this, but I'm not trying to be. In the same way, please hear me on this. In the same way, we're going to get to our text. This is introductory. In the same way there is this differential physical strength with a man versus physical strength of a woman, you can take the same differential and switch it when it comes to emotion, when it comes to the depth of feeling and the capacity for feeling. Now I am ready to have the debate with whoever in here disagrees with that because you'll be wrong and I'll win. Everybody wants to say that's not true. I feel things so deeply as a man. You think you do and your feelings are huge to you, but bro, you have no idea. I say this from observation. You have no idea the depth of emotion that the women have. You can't even imagine, you couldn't handle it. If you had it, you'd be in prison. I'd be in prison. If I had the emotion of my wife, I'm afraid I'd be incarcerated for the crimes, not that she's mad all the time, but her level of emotion, her highs are high, her lows are low. My mother with her New England, her main accent had this little limerick that she repeated a number of times through my childhood frequently. I don't know where she got up, but she used to say there was a little girl who had a little girl right in the middle of her forehead and when she was good, she was very, very good and when she was bad, she was horrid. I didn't know it was a prophecy. I'll say no more on that. I'm just trying to make the point that the depth of either the massive feelings that a woman endures, good and the bad, cannot be appreciated by the males of our species. Now, having said all of that, I'm just saying to you again, God used the word sorrow when he told Adam in Genesis chapter 3, the consequence of sin coming into the world. God used the word sorrow twice with Eve. Read it yourself, Genesis 3.16 versus Genesis 3.17. And I do maintain. We all got it bad, but ladies, you got it worse. And that was not God. Say, I'm gonna dump some more punishment on you because you did this. That's not what he was saying to Eve. What he was saying is, this is how you made and let me tell you how being made like that is going to guarantee you greater pain in this new arrangement. I'm gonna say again, she is not physically weaker. She is emotionally deeper and she is wired with a need to know that she's loved the need that will drive a woman to a crazy action. That will be the source of all her fears. Eve became the mother of all insecurities. The mother of all insecurities when I can see her because Adam wasn't deceived. Adam wasn't deceived. The scripture makes it plain that he harkened the voice of his wife, Genesis 3.17. But the scripture also makes it plain that he was not deceived. First Timothy 2.14, I believe, those two things. He was not deceived. He argued in the voice of his wife means she pleaded with him that Adam comes on the scene where she's holding in her hand that forbidden fruit which she has partaken from. And to Adam's absolute horror, he realizes what she's done. He tears the fruit out of her hand and she is no doubt standing there going, don't look at me like that. I'm still the same. Don't look at me like that. Don't leave me, Adam. I am sure she didn't make any attempt to pitch to him the lie that the serpent convinced her of. But she already is conscious of the consequence. Like already the beauty is fading. Already she's not the same that she had been. Why did the man eat that fruit? He put that fruit to his mouth and he pulled the trigger and he sent us all to hell. He committed suicide. He chose her over God. He chose the gift over the giver and every one of us are prone to it. Now to our text. And this is, this is, this can work. To our text. John chapter 8. In light of all of that, let me point out to you, women suffer more and in all four gospels we see the promised Savior, the very Savior that was promised in Genesis chapter 3, coming to the rescue of women. He chooses to announce that he is Messiah to the very first person who happens to be a woman of Samaria and John chapter 4. He chooses that the very first eyewitness to his resurrection would be Mary. He does stuff like this all through four gospels. He's the hero. John chapter 8 verse 1, Jesus went unto the mount of Olives. And early in the morning he came into the temple and all the people came unto him and he sat down and taught them. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst, they said unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery in the very act. Now, Moses in the law commended off that such should be stoned but what sayest thou? They'd heard him teach and say, you have heard that it had been said thou shalt not kill but I say unto you. Whosoever is angry, thy cause is in danger judgment. They've heard him say, you've heard that it is written, thou shalt not commit adultery but I say unto you. Whosoever looketh on a woman lost after her has commended adultery already in his heart. No contradiction between what the law says and what he said, he merely expended, he merely applied it like they should have and that they had failed to. But they hear him saying, the law says but I say, no, like this but I say, whoa. So they come in there and go, all right, so Moses says such should be stoned. What do you say? And they think they're so smart. They think they got him. They think, there's no way out of this teacher boy. In their mind, this is as great a chapter as the other one that failed. Is it lawful for us to pay tribute to Caesar or no? They keep thinking they got him. They know enough about him, even though they're his enemies, to know that he is not what this woman executed. And how could he avoid it? So there's the trap and there is this poor woman who is the bait to the trap. And as far as she can tell and as far as they can tell, she does not go on living that day. She can't. There's no way out. I want you to think about this for a second. Surely you've thought this before. If she was taken in the act, then where's the other participant? Where's he? Do you know what that means? You know what it means? It doesn't mean that she happened to be committing adultery with a track star who was the fastest sprinter in Israel. No, no, this was a setup. And anybody could tell it was, it was a setup. Somebody had been given some degree of absolution. Somebody had been given the indulgence, as it were, to engage this woman. How would you get a girl there? How would you as a religious punk succeed in seducing a woman to this act? Well, I'm just going to throw out to you the most likely scenario. The most likely scenario is you study, like a predator, and look for vulnerabilities. You see a woman. Perhaps she's not that attractive. Perhaps you can tell she's not that loved. Maybe. Maybe she is attractive. Maybe she's not. But there's a vulnerability. The one she's married to doesn't really love. So you come in and you spring the root, the U-trap, the same U-trap that we see in Proverbs chapter seven. When the seductress comes and just says, you, I've been looking for you and I found you. Remember in Proverbs seven how Solomon said, I looked out my window and I saw a young man. I discerned among the youths a young man, worried of understanding. Perifray Solomon said, I looked out the window and I saw someone stupid. And you might go, how could you tell he was stupid just looking out the window? Did he just look stupid? Some people do. Solomon, how could you tell this guy was devouring of understanding? His next verse, he goes, because he was there by her place at Twilight. It was where he was and when he was that demonstrated his stupid. And behold, the woman came with the attire of a harlot. But if you read Proverbs chapter seven, it says she used flattery with her smooth words. She seduced him. I submit to you. Proverbs chapter 27, I think it's the seventh verse. Check me on that. But the verse says, to him that is full, he that is full low thift, even a honeycomb. To him that is full. You know what it's like to go out and eat and when you're going out to eat, you're like, I'm getting dessert, right? You know, especially if they got it on a display, a little rotating pie carousel. You see those? I'm telling you, I'm going, I'm like, oh, I'm on my way to my seat. I'm getting that coconut cream pie. But then the steak happens and the potato, and the salad, and all the bread, and the other people's steaks that they haven't finished. And then the waitress comes along, would you like any dessert? No, no, no, no. So Proverbs 27 says, he that is full, low thift, even a honeycomb. To him that is hungry, even what is bitter tastes sweet. So we all know the experience about our standards getting lower when we're hungry. You know how it is, right? You're eating something, you're like, oh, this is so good. Is it really that good or am I just that hungry? Right? You know not to go shopping at the grocery store. You don't go to a rouse, hungry. It's a big mistake. You'll go broke. Everything looks good. Yes, that, yes, that. Forget your list, right? So it is. Emotionally, the unloved woman is vulnerable, vulnerable to that pumpkin word that starts complimenting, vulnerable. We're all vulnerable, but I'm telling you, my dear sisters, there's a longing in every little girl's heart. I maintain, and I've been preaching this for decades, men's conferences, that many women are different. Little boys are made for war. They have, they have one desire and that's to demonstrate themselves to be great. One primary need and that is to know that they're respected, that they're believed in, and it carries all the way through their life. No man is going to ask his wife, do I still look pretty to you? He won't even ask, do I look bald in this, do I look fat in these pants? He's not even going to ask. It doesn't matter. But indirectly, he'll still be checking, do you still believe in me? You still, you still think I'm smart, or I know what I'm doing? According to the New Testament teaching on marriage, one primary need is to be addressed by a wife to that man's heart and that is just submit yourself to him. Just all he needs to know is you believe in him. If nobody else does, you believe in him. Nobody else recognizes any greatness you have. One primary need in the heart of every woman is addressed by the command that God gives to both the apostle Paul and the apostle Peter. She needs to know she's loved. She needs to know that she's loved and it's never done. You can't say, I did that. No man can go. I did that. I told her I loved her. I did that. It ain't done. It's never done as long as you were both alive. You will fill that bucket. You'll fill that barrel with your bucket. Turn around here. It's empty again. It's all empty. It's all run out. You can spend the day saying I love you. You can spend the day poofing your lover and then you forget to sit before you go to sleep. Is she shaking and you're awake and you're going to go, you love me? And the man will go, are you kidding me? This is an outrage. Men are stupid and they'll be like, are you, I am offended that you've missed all of the gestures. It's never done. It hasn't done until you're dead. Your job is to love that woman as Christ has loved the church and gave himself. So loving is synonymous with giving yourself. Anyway, dying, coming into her world and dying for her. That's what you're supposed to do. Back to our text. What do you think? What do you think? I maintain a woman was most likely not seduced with her sex drive, but with her love need. I'm telling you, a woman caught in adultery. No man caught with her. She's taken to the B.A.C. tells me that somebody somewhere told her the thing that she always wanted to hear, but he was a liar. Some male at some point made her think that somebody finally sees what her husband doesn't see. I suggest to you, the trap involved flattering setup. And in an instant the trap is sprung and all of a sudden he's up and gone and other men have come and are grabbing her from the pace of their intimacy and dragging her out. You got a picture now? Can you see this? It's outrageous. And all she can think of is she's being drug away from that punk. He lied to me. All the way there. I'm thinking her heart is breaking all the way there. In fact, I wonder if she even cares if she dies. Drugged through town and either it happened that day and they're dragging her right through the whole festive, you know, population of Jerusalem. They're for the peace and how well dressed is she. Or they caught her days before they got her in holding, waiting for this moment, but they drag her to the temple, to the holy place. You with me? Let's see if we can get this done. And it was then as she's thrown into the presence of Jesus of Nazareth and probably not until then that she realized this was never about her. That she's being used. Does that ring a bell, ladies? Ever been used? There's a group of men using her. They care nothing about her. She is baked to a trap they have set for him. Oh, I think of all the things that must be going on in her heart. Wishing to not be the one that has put him in this position. Not wishing to meet him like this. So they throw out their question what says thou, verse 6, this they said tempting him that they might have to accuse him. And John, who writes this as an old man, still remembers what it was to be the young man who witnessed this. Probably a teen. He speaks about his hero, who is such awe. The conjunction but. But Jesus stooped down the ground and with his finger rolled on the ground as though he heard them not. The woman may be standing as the accuser. She might have been thrown at the end of the scene. It'll say it was just her and him standing. He stooped. He didn't panic. He didn't like put a trembling hand in his mouth. Oh my, oh my. He's so cool. John was like, he was so cool. You know, he just stooped down. He just starts riding on the ground as if leaving heaven he didn't come far enough down as if his condescension to come here wasn't enough. He goes down. He stoopes. It is said in Psalm 113, the greatness of God is that he dwells in such a high place that he has to stoop to observe the heavens and the earth. Psalm 113, he starts writing. Oh, like he didn't even hear them. Verse 7 says, when they continued asking him, and you can imagine the awkwardness that he created for these religious dudes, because they go, what do you say? And look at each other. They're like, oh, we got this guy. Country boys up in the big leagues now, doesn't realize who he's messing with. How are you going to get out of this one? Galilean? That's their sentiment. You know, they're like, and he's not answering them. And he's not panicked. They start looking at each other. He's writing. What would you do if you were there and you were them? What is he writing? You look at each other, then you see what he's writing. Let me just point something out to you. They continued asking him. He lifted up himself and said, he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. Yeah, let's get this execution going, all right? But the eyewitness has to be the one who throws the first stone. The law, you know, listen, just for the record, according to history, nobody was ever executed for adultery. It didn't happen. You know why? You got to have eyewitnesses. People don't do that. And the law, the legal requirement was, they couldn't just be seen going into a room together. There could be no other way to interpret their emotion except, well, you know, nobody got executed for this. And further, the Romans had taken the power of execution from them. So the Lord said, okay, you got me. All right, well, yeah, let's do it. Only the first one of you eyewitnesses who is without sin, you cast the first stone. Look at this. And verse eight, and again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground. There's nine says, and they which heard it being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even into the last. Let me, let me take something you might not know. I had to dig into this to find this. I didn't know it either, too. Earlier this year, because I don't know Greek. I know a little Greek. He runs a pizza place in Bangor, Maine. I know a little Hebrew. He runs a bagel shop. But I know how to use these dictionaries. And I discovered that the normal Greek word that you would use, if you're John, and you know, he was just writing on the ground is graphene, graphene in Greek. John didn't use graphene. He used this other word, cata grafini, grafini, grafini. Does it ring a bell? Cata grafini is a word that usually is chosen when somebody is writing a record against someone, a written record, an indictment. Kind of like in our culture when somebody suddenly breaks out their phone and they're recording you, you know they're going, they're recording to use this. This is a record against you in a conflict. Lord Jesus continued cata grafini. I am amazed at his kindness even to those wicked men. He did not tell us what he wrote. So it's number one, he didn't tell us what he wrote. Number two, the use of the word cata grafini. And number three, their reaction. It tells me he indicted them. He wrote what it would take to jar their memory of what he knows. And he started with the oldest one. This is the beginning of the oldest. They found somewhere else to be discreetly, just discreetly blending back into the cloud one by one until the youngest of them realizes, I'm the only one here. Like, wow, would you look at the time and he is gone. The Lord did that. Can I suggest to you a moment that might have happened as he's down? He has either put himself down where she is or he's put himself down below her. I just have to believe that at some point their eyes met and you can see in his eyes. He's not panicked. I looked and said, I got, don't worry about it. Maybe even a wink. Maybe even a smile, a look of kindness, but something gave her a heart that he's going to get both of them out of this. And then it's his here. They all laughed in verse nine. Jesus was left alone. There's a big empty circle. There's a multitude of people. But right there in that circle, he was alone and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lived it up himself, he saw none but the woman. Now, please, oh, man, I got to get this done real quick. Please, listen to this. I believe that when men said the word woman, when they said, we caught this woman, this woman was taken. And when they said the word woman, I believe you can hear the contempt, the lack of respect for the depth of what a woman is God created. The same lack of respect that modern culture has at large. You can hear it, the domestic dispute you've seen on cops. There's some mullet wearing Caucasian and a wife beater at the trailer park saying, woman, what? Why? Woman, why? And the way he says, woman, you can tell he's talking down when the son of God says it. And he says it. When the son of God says it. He said it to his mother. The wedding at Canada. He said, woman, I believe he's sung it. When he said it here, woman, where are those nonaccusers? I am telling you brothers and sisters, I'm telling you ladies, that lady there that day had never heard the word woman the way he spoke it. The very image of God imparted to one man divided into two people, two genders showing us aspects of our father in heaven that we couldn't have known otherwise but through an earthly mother. And the son of God said, woman, do you know what I'm saying to you? He didn't say, woman, where's your accusers? He said, the depth of appreciation for what she is. Where are those nonaccusers? Have no man condemned thee? So where do they all go? Woman, have no man condemned me? And she said, no man. No man. Lord, no man. There's a bunch of men who drug me here. A bunch of men who set me up. A bunch of men who shamed me in front of this whole city. No, they're gone. No man has condemned me. And he said, neither do I condemn me. Go and sin no more. You're free. Don't be played like that again. He acknowledged that it was sin. He was not an eyewitness. No, could he? And I say to you, brothers and sisters, men and women, we're all her. We've all been caught. The accuser has the good sauce. The one who accusers us day and night before God, he never stops unrelenting. And the same hero that came to her rescue was we have an advocate with God, the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. Ah, that's all I have time to say. Ben, would you please come?